Irrigation is the process of adding water to soil and plants in order to stimulate growth in the absence of natural resources i.e. rain. Irrigation has been around as long as humans have been cultivating and harvesting plants. One of the more prominent and the oldest means for irrigation is simply pouring water over the plants using a bucket or a similar device, an extremely labor intensive solution. This approach was prominent in ancient civilizations and is still seen in some less developed regions of the world. A more efficient and popular approach is called furrow irrigation. Furrow irrigation, also known as flood irrigation, pumps water to the crop fields where it is allowed to flow along the ground through crevices/trenches and in result among the crops. Flood irrigation is simple and cheap, but is highly inefficient; about half of the water is wasted and does not reach the crops. Water is lost due to runoff, evaporation, and transpiration. Various methods and solutions have been invented to decrease the water loss during these processes including capturing and reusing runoff and leveling the fields such that runoff does not occur in the first place, but this is limited to a certain extent.
The most efficient system for irrigation is the center-pivot irrigation system. Also known as circle irrigation or water wheel, the system utilizes a plurality of sprinklers distributed about a moving pipe segment to distribute water among a large region of crops. The standard system comprises a multitude of sequential piping equipped with spray nozzles, mounted on wheeled towers that translate about a central pivot point; the central pivot point feeds water to the piping. Because this method is not susceptible to evaporation and runoff, it is both efficient and highly popular in modern agriculture. The use of large machinery has its disadvantages, however. One prominent disadvantage is overturning under extreme weather conditions, more specifically strong winds. The design of the wheeled towers allow for the system to cover various elevation changes but leave the towers susceptible to turnovers. Turnovers lead to expensive damages, which in turn yields downtime.
The present invention provides a solution to this problem. This invention is an automatic anchoring system for the wheeled towers of an irrigation system. Equipped with a plurality of anchors, distributed about the wheeled towers. Thus, the possibility of an overturn due to environmental conditions, decreases substantially.